1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-channel data receiver for an aircraft data bus system. More particularly, the present invention was directed to a multi-channel data system in which the data words are received, examined and directed to designated storage devices.
2. Description of the Related Art
The operation of aircraft relies heavily on many electrical subsystems for successful flight missions. These electrical subsystems include, among others, flight management, navigation, auto-pilot, global positioning of systems, landing systems, fuel quantity systems, and the like. Many of these electrical subsystems require communications therebetween, alternatively, sensing subsystems may be located remote from the processing subsystems. Since many of these subsystems may be provided by different manufacturers, standards have been defined for the transfer of data messages on data buses that are wired throughout the aircraft. One such standard is the ARINC (Aeronautical Radio Incorporated) 429 Standard.
The ARINC 429 Standard is such that each data messages or data word is defined in a number of bits where certain bits define the information which is being communicated, and other bits define a label which indicates how the information bits are to be interpreted. In the ARINC 429, the data message is 32 bit word in which the first 8 bits define the label, and the later 24 bits define the information.
Commonly, multi-channel receiver systems operative with the ARINC 429 Standard, commonly employed a plurality of data receivers for capturing data from a dedicated ARINC 429 data bus. In turn, only selected ones of these data messages having a preselected label were processed to appropriately store the data information into a primary memory. In turn, the information stored in the primary memory was examined for further partitioning into secondary dedicated memory devices, where each of the second memory devices retained like kind information, for example, only GPS data, or only inertial reference data.
Multi-channel receivers as just described generally store more information in the memory than necessary. This is so, since only certain types of information are required during certain flight operations, for example, in flight, on ground, and take-off. This presents an undue burden on the main memory, and may result in loss of data and poor performance.